Failed State
by SnoopMaryMar
Summary: What if Senior came back to try and be a better father? Is he capable?


TI: FAILED STATE

AU: SnoopMaryMar

DI: I do not own NCIS or the characters.

RA: T

SU: What would happen if Tony DiNozzo Senior did try to be a better father?

This idea grew from conversation in a "What do you want from Season 8?" thread on CBS NCIS Wetpaint site.

* * *

Anthony DiNozzo Senior shakily sat down at the kitchen table, glass of soothing scotch close at hand, before burying his face in his hands.

He couldn't do this. He just couldn't.

When he'd flown in, he'd had these plans, these great plans to show Junior that while Gibbs may have his back, he was not his father. The words Gibbs had spouted at him months ago still stuck in his craw and now he had a chance to prove - not only to the man who had gotten his son so very badly hurt but to Junior himself - that he was a better father than they thought.

He'd thought wrong.

Seeing his boy in that bed in ICU had been humbling. There was more tape and tubing than Junior visible.

Multiple gunshot wounds. Collapsed lung. Damaged spleen. Broken bones.

What was wrong in this world that hurting somebody to make another pay was acceptable?

Junior should have been in a suit in a boardroom somewhere, not in a hospital on a respirator! Should have been chasing pretty girls, not lying inert and unaware as they changed his sweat-soaked sheets around his battered boy's frame!

It had been two long weeks before they let him leave the hospital.

Less than two days before Tony had realized he was in way over his head.

Junior could hardly sit up by himself. He had to be half-carried to and from the bathroom. The pain pills left him babbling and miserable and didn't work nearly well enough to stop his son from crying from the pain of his battered, abused body. He could only eat the most simple, soothing foods, couldn't focus or even have a conversation.

It was like 40 years hadn't happened - his son was incoherent, often upset and totally dependent on him for survival.

Tony knew that if he did this thing, it was over.

Junior would never forgive him.

Gibbs would in all likelihood hunt him down and kill him, if pretty Ziva didn't find him first.

* * *

Tony reeled on his bed, gasping and choking into wakefulness as his body flared and reminded him of its anger.

Hurts. Hurts hurts hurts.

"Dad?"

God, hurts.

"Dad, I need pills. Hurts."

Tony felt his legs tremble and bounce against his mattress and the sweat-soaked sheet.

"Dad?"

Tony felt himself convulse into a little ball in the centre of his bed, coughing and wheezing while flames of agony rippled up his legs and back.

"Dad, please!"

Tony felt the waves of pain pulling him under slam through his body over and over again. He rocked back and forth desperately as he futilely tried to get some comfort.

"Please oh please oh please oh please..."

Nausea spun in his stomach. He swallowed hard and tried to fight it but he couldn't, not with the contortions twisting his body like a pipe-cleaner.

Tony felt hot tears slip down his cheeks as the acid from what little he'd eaten and now ejected all over himself burned his still-scraped flesh.

"Dad, please..."

Hurts. Hurts hurts hurts.

* * *

Tim McGee parked his car, steeling himself against the gut-wrenching pain he knew would come from this visit. Seeing Tony of all people so broken and undone was excruciating. This was Tony, the guy who outran a bomb the day he came back from having the plague. Tony, who was so tough that only Gibbs could survive more. Tony, the agent whose shoes he doubted he could ever fill.

That Gibbs felt the same had become perfectly evident as Tim struggled to keep up with Tony's real workload, not the one he'd delegated to Tim during those four months when Tony had been in charge. Tony - even stoned on pain and pain pills - would at least answer his questions and guide him. After the past few months, Tim knew that he wanted to be Tony's SFA. He never wanted to be Gibbs' SFA. He'd be McGoo or Probie forever if it meant never having to take everything for Gibbs and take on Gibbs every day without a break ever again.

Tim knocked on the door, waiting for DiNozzo Senior to let him in so he could check up on his friend. Finally, he knocked again. Then called. Called both Tony DiNozzos. Still nothing.

Tim had a horrible feeling. He quickly tried the door before digging around for his keys. Finding the spare Tony had forced onto him last year, he walked in and shut the door.

"Tony?"

He winced as he saw the empty scotch on the table. If he was passed out when he was supposed to be watching Tony, Gibbs -.

McGee froze. Listened again. Drawing his weapon, he slowly worked his way down the hall towards the stairs before racing up to the landing.

There was that sound again. McGee carefully approached Tony's room and nudged the door open with the tip of his Sig.

It hit the floor hard.

Oh, _Jesus_.

Tim didn't stop to wonder what was going on, in fact afterwards he had trouble recalling exactly what had happened.

Tony was lying there, contorted by pain into a little ball in the centre of his bed, vomit-soaked and wracked by fever.

Crying.

"Hurts hurts hurts. Please oh please. Dad..."

His voice was barely a rasp. How long had he been screaming for his father before Tony's voice - already strained by his ordeal and recovery - had given out?

McGee didn't even remember calling the ambulance or Gibbs.

* * *

Gibbs paced the floor outside the ER doors, waiting for anyone to come and tell him what was going on with his agent! Gibbs shuddered; seeing Tony like that had been devastating. He darted a quick look over to where McGee sat silently staring at the doors.

Gibbs scrunched up the cup and tossed it into the bin, guilt churning through his gut. He'd stepped aside for DiNozzo Senior even though he'd had an awful feeling about it. And look at what trying to be nice had done.

How could the man just leave his injured, broken son like that?

How could he abandon his child when he was desperately needed?

Why didn't he call and ask for help?

How could he do that to Tony?


End file.
